Return to Rush Valley
by bookwormwithanattitude
Summary: Just a happy little fic for written for Don't Forget Day- Winry returns to Rush Valley after the events of the Promised Day and find Ed and Al have sent a letter ahead of her.


Winry took a deep breath, her knees trembling a little.

"I'm back."

Paninya hit her like a ton of bricks. Then Mr. Garfiel. She was slowly suffocating, sandwiched between their humongous hugs. She found it deeply tragic that after she went through all the trouble of escaping the military, she was going to meet her end here.

"Guys…please…"

"You heard her, Mr. Garfiel," Paninya mumbled into Winry's hair. "We oughta let her go."

Mr. Garfiel obliged with a grumble, then angrily put his hands on his hips. "Paninya! You're not letting her go!"

"That's right, sucker. Now I have her all to myself!" Paninya picked Winry up and spun her around. "I was so freakin' worried about you, Winry!"

"I'm sorrry…" Winry said dizzily as Paninya set her down. She faced the rest of the denizens of Mr. Garfiel's automail shop. Everyone was here, Tetsu, Lina, old man Hopkins… but they were hanging back, looking a little nervous and hesitant.

"I'm really sorry to all of you…" Winry said, her shoulders slumping. "I…I let you down as you mechanic, going missing for so long. I know it must have been really upsetting, not even knowing where I was. I, of all people, know what it's like to have to wait around, not knowing if someone will even come back to you- it's horrible. I never wanted to put anyone else in that position, and yet…"

She took a deep breath, looking at all their blank faces, looking over at Paninya, whose brown was wrinkled in concern. She wanted to cry.

"I-I really wanted to contact you but…I got in over my head. I can't even really explain to you what happened because…it's just too ridiculous, and it involves a lot of secrets that are not mine to reveal. It's pathetic, but I can't even offer an excuse."

She turned to Mr. Garfiel, her lip trembling a little.

"Mr. Garfiel, you took me in and you taught me so much, just out of the goodness of your heart. I had a duty to you as your student and I just…abandoned that, going off somewhere, not even knowing if I'd ever see you again….I'm glad I made it back though, so I could tell you…" She lowered her head, trying to put all her contrition into one bow. "Thank you so much for all you've done for me. I understand if you no longer want me as your apprentice. I apologize from the bottom of my heart for all the trouble I've caused."

There was a short silence. Mr. Garfiel looked down at her with a very severe expression. "So you have no excuses?"

Winry nodded, keeping her head lowered, squeezing her eyes shut and bracing herself.

Mr. Garfiel let out a deep, hearty laugh. It was the kind of laugh that came from the bottom of the gut.

Paninya started giggling too, her hands over her mouth.

Soon, all the other people in the shop were chuckling, groaning and rolling their eyes. Winry heard muttered explanations like "Wow, they were right", "Well of course they were, this is just like our Winry" and "Seriously, is she for real?"

"Uhhh…what's going on?" Winry asked, straightening up, utterly confused.

"Edward and Alphonse sent us a letter way ahead of you, Winry, dear," Mr. Garfiel said, taking an envelope out of his suspenders pocket and offering it to Winry. "Would you like to read it?"

"They…what?"

Winry opened the envelope numbly. She recognized the handwriting as Alphonse's immediately…it was much neater than Ed's, which was probably why he'd been chosen as the scribe. But Ed's signature was at the bottom of the letter too- they had written it together.

_Dear Mr. Garfiel and All of Winry's Customers and Friends at Rush Valley,_

_Hello, this is Edward and Alphonse Elric, writing to you from the hospital in Central._

_We are writing to offer our deepest apologies for taking the services of one of the world's top automail mechanics (in our opinion) away from the people who needed her for such a long period of know her skills are very important to helping a great deal of people here. Unfortunately, we required her services to save our lives and the lives of everyone in the country. _

_ She first came up to visit us simply to install cold-weather automail because Ed was too dumb to realize he would get frostbite in the North (_the end of this part was written a little messily, a sure sign Ed had smacked Al in the shoulder for writing it),_ but she ended up helping us even more than that. We forced her into a very dangerous hostage situation out of our own carelessness and she ended up coming up with a plan that, at great risk to herself,allowed everyone to escape safely with their lives. Unfortunately, this plan meant she was very much in danger and still being targeted, so she was forced to go into hiding in order to protect herself and allow us to move freely without being threatened. _

_I'm sure all you remember the strange phenomenon that forced everyone to collapse just recently, and how this country was saved from a great threat. It was partly thanks to Winry that that threat was vanquished and the country was saved- her plan, which put her life in danger, also allowed someone with vital information we needed to save the country to escape with his life and continue working with us. Without him, and without Winry, we probably wouldn't have been able to save everyone._

_It was entirely our fault that Winry was unable to work here for such a long time, so please blame us instead of was going above and beyond her duties as an automail mechanic in service to us, saving lives and helping customers just the way she was taught._

_Winry's a huge weirdo about automail stuff and we know it really tore her up to do this, so we wouldn't be surprised if she doesn't offer any excuses and says it's her fault. But don't listen to her. _

_We are prepared to take responsibility and fully financially reimburse you for all of the assistance and work from her you lost while we were monopolizing her services. Our return address is on this letter. Just name the price, and we'll pay it. Just give Winry her job back and tell her she has nothing to feel guilty about._

_Yours sincerely,_

_Edward and Alphonse Elric_

And then, scribbled in Ed's messy scrawl was:

_P.S. DO NOT TELL WINRY WE SENT THIS LETTER. I SWEAR IF YOU DO I WILL BEAT YOU UP._

Winry was crying so hard at this point the letter had become a big black-and-white blur. Honestly, the tears had started from the very first sentence and it had just been harder to read from them.

"Th-those idiots," she managed to say. "Who gave them the right?"

Paninya put her hand on Winry's shoulder, grinning broadly. "I think you're the bigger idiot for not telling us what's in this letter yourself."

"Yeah, well…Y-you showed the letter to me even though Ed told you not to," she croaked at Mr. Garfiel.

"Oh my, did I?" Mr. Garfiel put his hand over his mouth in mock horror.

"Oooh, better watch out, Ed's gonna beat you up now," Paninya laughed.

"Aw, I can take him." Garfiel flexed a muscular arm for emphasis.

"I'm…I'm still…really sorry…" Winry said, wiping her eyes desperately. "I really regretted being gone for so long."

Tetsu came forward and tugged on Winry's hand. Lina and Old Man Hopkins followed him, and so did the others.

"C'mon Winry," Tetsu said, "We really missed you, but we know you don't belong to just us or anything. We're just glad to have you back. I have a lot of stuff I need you to fix!"

Winry sighed, her tears drying up a little. "Tetsu, you seriously need to stop breaking all your toys…it's not my job as your mechanic to…"

"Yeah, you always say it, but then you fix it anyway," Tetsu gave a huge smile so huge she saw a new tooth had grown in where there used to be a gap."That's why I love you, Winry!"

"Okay, before we all get back in the saddle of time-honored tradition of taking advantage of Winry, we're going to have a HUGE PARTY to welcome her back, right?" Paninya whooped, throwing her hands in the air. "I wanna have cake! And here all the gritty details of how she saved those dumbasses!"

"Since when is it a tradition to take advantage of me?" Winry squawked, but she was crying and laughing as everyone in Rush Valley converged on her for the largest, messiest, most metallic group hug of all time.

It was good to be back.


End file.
